About 2 years ago I was doing quite a big Keynote in Sweden at an event about “change in the world” and trends and stuff. I covered my normal stuff including the idea that we’ve got too much content, too many great things to do/buy/listen to/watch & that with this stimulation and choice boredom was a thing of the past. Someone challenged me on this in the questions in front of everyone. Which is unusual in Sweden. I realized at that moment they were right and I’d been entirely wrong. It was great. They mentioned the idea that modern content consumption is an emotion close to boredom. It’s a quasi morose, semi hypnotized, transfixed trance, from “the loop” of what we get tricked into doing on our phones by our brains’ biochemistry. Nobody could ever explain why they were “choosing” to consume stuff, they’d just failed to get up and do something else for long enough. Most stuff people watch now isn’t selected by them, they tolerate it. It’s a state of both boredom and empty stimulating hypnosis. It’s this understanding of the fatigued, vapid way that a lot of things are watched and increasingly items are bought, which we need to understand when marketing to people, making shoppable ads and trying to create better stuff for. …see more